Online teaching - and learning

Have you ever taught online? And what did you - and they - learn?

Online teaching entered my life about ten years ago. I was still living in Switzerland (now I share my time between Switzerland and Greece) and in the summer I took a few weeks to go and visit my parents and sister in Greece. However, I didn’t want to disappoint my face-to-face students who wanted to continue their lessons during the summer as well, so I always offered the online version and most accepted. Back then I was using Skype.

Zoom came much later for my private lessons - and Teams too when my three schools decided to start using them - during the pandemic. So much training went on, so many tools to use on each platform, so much work to do especially with large groups.

Photo by Lauren Mancke on Unsplash

At first it was a bit challenging, as apart from teaching on a screen, I gave my students assignments to do, cameras off, then cameras on again, private messages coming in with questions or in the public chatbox…but somehow during those 9 months of complete lockdown, we all got into it, we learned it and loved the comfort of doing our lessons from home, having the laundry on in the background or food cooking, pets of my students coming in front of the screen or cute little kids of my students who are parents, so many new things!

Plus, I started my PhD exactly one week before my university also decided to go into lockdown, so I remember just attending one session face-to-face - being so happy going to the actual building, and then continuing online. It also worked for a year and a half, we all loved it, we could share screens, ideas, laughs and could go on with our studies.

Humans are so easy to adjust to new conditions, and even though there can be loneliness, the occasional frustration and fear of getting sick, we all managed to adapt to the new reality.

A lot of us still continue online, including myself and I really love it! I continue teaching exclusively online, continue my PhD online - and it works.

Do you teach and/or learn online?

What do you like about it?

Is there something you don’t really like?

What are your experiences?

The Saturday Scholar

Our Scholar for this week is the one and only Peter Trudgill!

He studied at King's College, Cambridge, and at Edinburgh University, before taking up a position at Reading University, where he was successively Lecturer, Reader and Professor from 1970 to 1986. He then moved to the University of Essex and then, in 1992, to the University of Lausanne. He has been Professor of English Linguistics at Fribourg since 1998. Peter Trudgill is a Fellow of the British Academy, of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, of the Royal Norwegian Academy of Sciences and of the Royal Gustavus Adolphus Academy for Swedish Folk Culture; and he has an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Uppsala, Sweden (from his page on the University of Fribourg website).

If you are into Linguistics (or even not), his books and articles are gems and so well-written.

I am sure he won’t mind my saying it, but I had an email correspondence with him a while ago and he was the politest and so very helpful with sharing his knowledge! I think when someone is so good at their work and a lovely personality as well, it needs to be said. I am so grateful to him.

The Music Highlight

Today’s musician is Sting - I love his music so much and I was fortunate enough to see him live in concert in Zurich, Switzerland in 2015 along with another music legend - Paul Simon!

Sting sounds amazing live, he can play a bunch of instruments and his stage presence is mesmerising and so theatrically beautiful.

Here is one of his least known songs, and one of my absolute favourites: